


The Beetle

by saikogrrl



Category: Audrey Niffenegger - Her Fearful Symmetry
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saikogrrl/pseuds/saikogrrl





	The Beetle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eponine119](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eponine119/gifts).



A tiny black beetle slowly but deliberately made its way across the smooth polished granite of the gravestone. Suddenly it stopped and shivered. Impervious to the fact that beetles do not shiver, nevertheless, this is what it did. The little girl watched him carefully, waiting for it to happen again.

The beetle kept trundling along on his path, until he reached the edge of the gravestone, but instead of crawling off the edge, he started to move backward. Or was he being pushed backwards? But by who, the little girl wondered. Her glasses slipped down onto her nose, and she pushed them back impatiently, trying to see who the beetle's invisible assailant was. Its antennae waved wildly in confusion as it skittered around the surface of the grave, this way and that.

The girl reached out her hand to save the little beetle, but before she touched him, a chill crept into her fingers and she felt something cool, soft, and… whiskery? A warm, raspy tongue licked her palm, and the girl stumbled back, startled. Her mother called from a few graves away and she reluctantly followed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the beetle flip onto his back and then, pouncing on him, a tiny grey kitten. It lifted its silvery eyes to her, picked up the beetle in its mouth, then vanished.


End file.
